My Two Cents on "Weiner-Gate" (UPDATED)

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY)

Let me begin this post by pointing out how incredibly stupid this entire so-called scandal really is. The gist of the issue is a picture of some guy's junk (presumably Mr. Weiner's, but no one is certain) was sent to a woman via twitter. The picture was deleted before it was ever received by said woman, and she has commented publicly that this is no big deal, and she admires the Congressman. Somehow, this picture (the one the intended recipient never received) ended up on notorious right-wing scandal creator Andrew Breitbart's website, along with scurrilous claims about Rep. Weiner "following young women" on Twitter.

Putting aside who the Congressman follows on Twitter (which is indicative of nothing, and anyone who understands how twitter works knows this), I think I have a theory as to how this happened. 

I have an iphone, and more than one twitter account. I have an account for me personally, and I have one for my radio show. On the iphone, when you open the twitter app, it automatically opens to the last account you used when you last used twitter. You can use that account, or you can hit the menu button and log into a different one. On a phone, the account names are pretty small, and I have, on occasion, used the wrong account accidentally. When tagging someone else in a twitter post, all you have to do is start typing the first few letters of a name, and the app tries to fill in the rest. For example, if I am intending to tag my friend, Alice, I would type @Al and the app would put in the rest. Or it could select Alan or Alfred or anyone with a similar name. Accidents do happen.

Now, perhaps Mr. Weiner meant to use his private account to send the picture to someone (his wife, maybe), but he was in his "official" account and accidentally sent it to someone else. He realized his mistake and deleted the pic immediately. This is a totally plausible theory.

Now, as to why someone would take a picture of their junk (in underwear or not) is beyond me. It is also beyond me, however, why anyone would vote Republican. But, hey, different strokes for different folks, right? No pun intended. Think about it.

There is also the possibility that Rep.Weiner's twitter account or his computer were hacked and he didn't post the picture at all. This is what he is claiming. There are literally thousands of viruses that enable an unknown third party access to your computer. Perhaps this is what happened. Who knows. Who cares, really? Were any laws broken by Rep. Weiner? Was the accidental recipient offended? No. Was she a minor? No. Did Mr. Weiner try to pick up random men in an airport bathroom and engage in sex acts? No. Did he have an affair with is his best friend's wife and then have his parents pay them hush money? No. Those have the makings of a scandal, this does not.

With all of the real news out there, I have no idea why a single legitimate news organization would waste a single second covering this story. Hell, I've already spent too much time on it. This is another in a long line of Breitbart created attacks disguised as news. This was fed to Fox News and then aggregated throughout the right wing media. One expects Fox News to ignore substantive stories and focus on manufactured scandal like this, but what about CNN, MSNBC, and the rest? How many more times will you idiots fall for these Breitbart smears? How fucking stupid are you?

In an effort to make themselves look less idiotic and less like Fox imitators, the legitimate media is now making the story about Rep. Weiner's answers to the questions about this manufactured scandal. Why won't he say for sure if the picture is him? Why didn't he call the Capitol police? etc. WHO FUCKING CARES!? You know this is a nothing story, and the proof is that the story is now about answers to questions about the story and not the story itself!

Media: cover the fucking news. We have three wars going on, an economy struggling to recover after the decimation it endured after 8 years of George Bush, and a war on the middle class being waged by the Republican Party. Plus, there are all the tornadoes across the country and the devastation they left behind. There is plenty to cover. Move on.

UPDATE: Recent articles at both Salon and The Smoking Gun are shedding light on the so-called source of the information on the dirty tweets. It's looking more and more like a hoax. Even Breitbart may be distancing himself from this one...

UPDATE 2: This was definitely a frame up. This blog explains exactly how easy it is to "hack" into another person's yfrog account (a company that hosts twitter pictures) and post a picture making it look like it was from that person. It doesn't actually involve hacking at all, it is very simple.

UPDATE 3: Disregard my earlier updates. Weiner just admitted he sent the picture. What a dumb ass. I still like Rep. Weiner, and appreciate his combativeness, but this is just the dumbest thing ever. Major disappointment.